S7. Mesoscale phenomena in ceramic materials

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Mesoscopic phenomena span length scales that are considerably larger than atomic-bond distances, but small enough that classical continuum physics with materials properties and behavior averaged over many domains, or regions 10–100 nm in size, does not apply. The involved physical processes belong to a region bridging quantum mechanical and macroscopic continuum materials descriptions, which makes them critically important for any multiscale level approach to materials design, modeling, growth, and characterization. Furthermore, such phenomena are interesting in their own right, because many materials systems exhibit intriguing behavior with nontrivial dependence on shape, size, and geometry that is yet to be understood completely. Specifically, in complex oxides, this may include interactions among elastic, polar, and magnetic parameters as well as chemical reactions and diffusion. Simple fundamental examples include the influence of the shape of ferroelectric nanostructure on its domain configuration, fine-tuning the optical response of core–shell nanoparticles, and processes of phase separation in multicomponent systems. This symposium brings together experts to discuss the current state-of-the-art (and future directions) in theoretical modeling, synthesis, characterization, and processing of mesoscopic ceramic structures, with a primary focus on the influence of shape, size, geometry, and strength of the involved interactions on the system properties and functional behavior.